Anniversaries
by androidilenya
Summary: Elrond and Elros share a birthday, until they do not.


On the twins' eighth birthday, Elrond held his brother under a thick blanket, the two children huddled in a corner in a nest of bedding. Elros cried in complete silence, biting his lip and shuddering against his brother.

"Don't tell them," he had insisted that morning, brow furrowed and fists clenched, "That's _our_ day and they don't have any right––"

_They have their begetting days, but we have our birthday, and that was what mother wanted, so that's not theirs to take as well––_

Elrond had nodded, had joined Elros in avoiding Maglor the entire day, and under cover of darkness they had their own remembrance of a day that had once been joyful, trading whispered memories in a tangle of blankets that reminded them of the soft, wide beds of Sirion––_do you remember the time mother baked us a cake and burned it, do you remember how she used to braid your hair, every morning––_

* * *

On their eighteenth birthday, the two of them sought out a secluded corner of the overgrown garden, curled in the dew-soaked shadows and let the restless twitter of the birds fill the spaces between.

"Do you think she would recognize us, if she came back today?" Elros asked abruptly, sounding nearly wistful as he twined a blade of grass around itself, resolutely not looking at his brother. Elrond––sprawled out on the ground beside him––sat up and stretched.

"She might. We haven't changed all that much in ten years." No need to ask who "she" was––there was only one that Elros referred to in that tone of voice, and only one whose name he refused to speak.

Elros narrowed his eyes, fingers falling still. "If you don't think so, then just _say_––"

"I don't think much either way," Elrond replied, half wishing he had an answer and half wanting Elros to stop bringing it up, stop asking about things that it was a decade too late to change, because if their mother––if _Elwing _had wanted to stay and see her children grow up, she could have _stayed_.

"Wouldn't you want to know?" If their mother remembered them, if their mother regretted, if, if, _if_––

Elrond opened his mouth, ready to snap something along the lines of _wouldn't you rather she had stayed so we wouldn't be asking this anyways_, but something in Elros' face stopped him, frightened and suddenly so _young_.

"Yes. I––it would be wonderful to know."

* * *

On their fifty-eighth birthday, they watched the sun rise over a ruined land, the smoke-torn sky above nearly clear for the first time in decades.

The war was over.

"Where do we go now?" Elrond asked, reaching out for Elros' hand, suddenly afraid that his brother would disappear in the light, the shock of the new world too much.

"They say the half-elven are given a choice of mortality," Elros mused, and Elrond glanced at him.

"A choice that you are well within your rights to delay, my brother."

"A choice I may take _now_, if I see fit." Elros shook his head. "The world––I think our problem has always been that the world moved too fast for us. Living in the world, I could––there could be change, I could _do_ something."

Elrond would have protested, if he had not expected this, if these were not the words he had always expected, on some level, to hear from his brother's lips.

_Too soon. There's still so much, brother, you could––_

"I will miss you," he offered, the only thing he could think of, and Elros laughed.

"I am not dead yet, brother." He squeezed Elrond's hand, smiling. "We have many years before us to rebuild, many years more to enjoy in this newly freed land. Shall we begin?"

* * *

Elrond celebrated their five-hundreth birthday alone.

* * *

On Elrond's (_their_) last birthday in Middle-earth, he turned his back to the mirror and spoke to his empty room (always the way he had spoken to Elros, all these years, because if he glanced over his shoulder quickly enough he could catch a glimpse of someone who _could_ have been his brother, still alive and only an arms-length away).

"We sail west soon," he said aloud, and even after so long he half-expected a reply in a voice the same as his own. "We'll––I'll see mother again."

_Do you think she remembers, Elros? Because I fear that I do not remember anything about her, and that even your face is slipping from my mind._

"I wish you could be there."

_I wish I could see you again, only once more._

"My daughter stays here. She made the same choice as you once did, brother." A choice to die and pass on from this world, and Elrond had never been able to figure out if that was a choice of courage or––otherwise.

"When she comes to you––" He clenched his fingers around the sleeves of his robe, and tried to summon his brother's face in his mind. "You'll take care of her, won't you?"

He closed his eyes, imagining he could hear his brother's laugh, feel the fleeting warmth of a hand in his. For a second, eyes closed and the world gone, he almost believed.

When he opened them, the room was still empty.


End file.
